Scottish Poetry Selection
- A Sermonette

Here is a poem by Walter Wingate in which he observes that in the Autumn (Fall) most of the leaves wither from the trees, in the usual cycle of the seasons, but the falling leaves always give a promise of the next Spring.


A Sermonette

Methinks the very trees
Confute the Sadducees.
    Take any sprig of willow,
    Now withering to yellow,
And on the point to fall:
And see in each and all,
    Within the axil resting,
    A purple conelet nesting.
In these the willows fling
Their hopes toward the spring,
    Across the grave of winter,
    Their life beyond to enter.
Who taught the thoughtless tree
So far ahead to see?
    How tripled every blessing
    Would be, of our possessing,
Could some blind inner sense
Acquire such confidence!

Return to the Index of Walter Wingate Poems or the General Index of Scottish Poetry




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